A blog for genealogists tracing the Robert Newton Turpin family into the past or the present and wanting to share information.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Remainder of the "Sketches"

III.

Little flurries of snow came into
the wagon under the taut and sleet covered canvas. Hannah was lying on a feather bed, one of the
three possessions she had brought from home.
Again she used buffalo robes for covers.
Doug mumbled and cursed at the slow oxen for he had hoped to get to some
kind of settlement because Hannah’s time was near.

That night they made a decision. Hannah couldn’t stand the eternal bumping and
swaying of the wagon any longer. She was ready to meet her problem alone if
they would only make camp. In the morning Doug scraped the snow from the frozen
ground and burrowed into a hill. Using
willows for a frame and covering them with “green” buffalo hides, Doug
fashioned themselves a home. Bare, gray,
clay-like walls formed three sides of the dugout and the hides served as front
and roof.

In one corner was a crude fireplace
just big enough to hold the second of Hannah’s treasures, a Dutch oven in which
she cooked all the meals. Each day the
meal was the same buffalo or antelope meat and black coffee with an occasional
batch of biscuits or sour dough bread as a treat.

Empty gunpowder kegs made the
necessary chairs and tables. The feather
mattress was stretched over more buffalo hides.
Here Hannah lay until her time was near sewing leather moccasins and
breeches for Doug with her last priceless possession from her stock of three
articles. A few needles in a kit made up
the last treasure. The needles were
enormous things, one or two of bone, which were the very thing for the deer
sinews Hannah used for thread.

Here in the half-cave half-hut that
was filled with smoke Hannah bore her first child, a boy. She named him for two other buffalo hunters
after they had insisted on sending back East for a complete outfit of baby clothing. Months later the clothing arrived. The dainty dresses were the first bit of
something lovely and beautiful that Hannah had seen in many months.

Maud Bell Wolff and son Joe

IV.

As soon as the snow was melted Doug and Hannah were on their way. This time they traveled by horse for the cumbersome wagon was abandoned. Hannah’s lovely feather bed was rotting back in the little cave hut. One had to leave behind and sacrifice a great many things in this kind of country.

The string of pack animals which followed them were laden with buffalo hides. Doug would be rid of them before long for they weren’t far distant from a trading post and fort. At high noon of a scorching hot day they saw the fort. It seemed almost to be a mirage. Neither could control themselves for happiness. The fort meant people and people meant news.

Those coming days at the fort were to be some of the happiest Hannah had had in many months. The first person she saw was her own sister, Nancy Elizabeth, who had married Doug’s brother Joseph. Here was a piece of news!

That night there was a gay time at that small out of the way and seemingly forgotten garrison. Doug found a soldier with a fiddle and after dinner he resumed a practice he had almost forgotten through the months, that practice was playing the fiddle.

Doug turned out many square dances and waltzes that night. Time after time he played “Over the Waves” and “The Lancers” as Hannah and Nancy Elizabeth danced with the officers and men. Bidding was high for the two women. Not only did their scarcity make them popular but the facts that they were young, fresh and beautiful were also points in their favor. When they were taken as partners the soldiers would pair off to form the other two couples necessary for a square dance.

It was all so gay and carefree. A happy smile strayed over Hannah’s lips as she was sleeping that night. Life had so many happy moments.

V.

A second winter was spent in the same cave-like hut which Hannah and Doug had improvised the winter before. This time they had company for late in the fall another brother of Doug’s and Hannah’s father had come up the river. Hannah’s father was there to take her home.

Hannah had been the youngest child of his family and the attachment he had for her was the mutual feeling of companionship a father often has for his son. She had been born on Christmas day, the anniversary of the death of his only son [Thomas Benton Turpin] in the War Between the States.

While the rest of her sisters were at home helping their mother adjust to the news and hard life caused by the war by carding, weaving and spinning, Hannah would be with her father in the fields. She sat on a box he had built for her at the side of the plow and drug her barefeet in the cool, newly turned rich, dark earth.

Hannah and her father had so many things to talk about; the animals, the birds, and even the seeds they planted For these reasons he had followed her to the West in order to take her back home. Hannah loved her new life, however, the freedom and the vastness of it made life seem only more attractive. She had more to do that winter. There were candles to mold from buffalo fat, and bullets to mold.

Hannah had also become an excellent rifle shot and she used almost as many of her molded bullets as Doug did. It was not uncommon for her to look up from her work to see a stray antelope or buffalo a few rods from the hut. Each time before she left she carefully tied the small child to a post so he couldn’t follow her into the tall grass and underbrush. Hannah often brought in amazing skins as Doug did. Hannah became capable. She couldn’t return to a life where she would be expected to conform to the conventional way again.

VI.

Years had passed by. Williston was a typical, overgrown, cow town
in the main line of the Great Northern Railroad. A small dirty depot was the gateway to one of
the gayest blocks in the country. Up one
block from the depot was the district belonging to the fancy girls, the
district of saloons. This was the part
of town known to Step-Ladder Nell and Red-Top Law.

Hannah went to this part of the town
but once. Years had branded Hannah as a
woman who would work day and night for anyone in distress. It didn’t matter to Hannah who the person
was; if they were in need they had her help.

An epidemic had broken out in the
town. One by one the black hearse slowly drove the corpses up to the little
dust-blown cemetery. The women who could
have helped were generally at home caring for some member of their own family.
Hannah’s family was no exception. Her youngest daughter was ill.

One day the surrey from Heffernan’s
stable drove up in front of the log house belonging to Hannah and Doug
Bell. A fancy lady got out. It was a wide-eyed and open-mouthed youngster
who opened the door to the visitor who was dressed in such finery as the Bell’s
had never seen. Hannah shooed away the
children and demanded in none to sweet a voice the reason she was honored. It
was Step-Ladder Nell the woman that had come. She was ill with the plague. She
needed help. She needed Hannah.

Hannah packed up a few belongings
and climbed into the surrey with the woman. Neither said a word. The woman headed for the part of town unknown
to Hannah. The woman led Hannah up the
dark stairway of a rich and elegant house all decorated in red plush and gilt
furnishings until they came to Step-Ladder Nell’s room.

Hannah stayed for days with Nell
doing the best her small knowledge of medicine allowed her to do. On the day
that Nell died she told Hannah the story of her life. She gave Hannah a strange parting gift in the
form of a pistol which had two Notches cut in the handle. Nell didn’t explain
the notches. She didn’t have to for
Hannah knew.

At home Hannah’s child had died
while she was listening to Nell’s story.
A story she hadn’t wanted to hear. Hannah carried her grief
silently. No matter how close to home
grief came it followed the idea that those should be of service to as many as
possible before she thought of herself or her own family.

Hannah’s daughter and Step-Ladder
Nell were buried almost side-by-side.
Hannah knelt to say a prayer for Nell.
Nell needed a prayer more than Hannah’s daughter did.

VII.

A puffing train chugged up to the
same dingy depot of Williston, North Dakota and let out a bewildered group of
Negroes who stood sadly in the midst of their luggage and bundles which evidently
were musical instruments, and watched the train depart for the East. Williston was to have a dance. Doug Bell and
George Newton wouldn’t be grinding out the tunes tonight.

Everyone in town, that is everyone
but the Negroes were in a state of commotion.
The Negroes stood to one side.
Their flat noses had an exaggerated tilt which gave them a half superior
and condescending and a half comical air.

Eight o’clock that night above the
Leon Hardy Saloon the dance began.
Hannah, her sister, Nancy Elizabeth and a few added white women were
still the belles of the ball. The
feminine population of Williston hadn’t increased much even though the town was
now on the railroad. The fancy women
didn’t count, of course.

Dance after dance went off. Lovely music, new tunes and melodies that
Williston had never heard before were included in the Negroes playing. Midnight
came and as if one the band folded up and prepared to leave before the
astonished eyes of the townspeople. It didn’t take long for someone to take the
affair in hand. Buck Bell walked to the
door with a rolling gait of a cowboy and locked the door. He shoved the key deep into the pocket of his
chaps which he pulled up over his hips as he walked toward the band platform.

As he came near he reached around to
his left hip and drew a gun. “Now boys,” he drawled “we hired you for an
evening of music. We expect you to play
until we are through dancing. If you all
don’t care to play I’ll distribute the instruments among our boys.” Buck fingered
his gun again. It didn’t take the Negroes to long to decide. They struck up a merry tune somewhat shakily
while Buck hovered near them.

The Negroes played until dawn and
Hannah danced every minute of the time.
She had such a gay time that evening.

Epilogue

Year after year went by, some
happily and some of them sad. Hannah
took them all with her chin up. Time was too short to let the passing of an old
friend, or the removal of an old landmark trouble her for long. She reserved a spot in her heart for her past
life, the friends of her younger days, but Hannah kept abreast with the
changes. She was young again with her
grandchildren. She became grandma to the
whole town. To her family in Virginia she
was a lost branch of the family tree. [Note from Marcia: While the Turpin family did hail from Virginia, Hannah and herself was born in Greene County, Iowa. She and sister Nancy Elizabeth moved to Nebraska after their mother died and their father remarried. It was in Nebraska that the girls met the Bell brothers.] While they were moldering in tradition. Hannah Bell was making a new
tradition, the tradition of a pioneer woman.